Retail stores are a staple of modern-day living. Physical brick-and-mortar stores employ a familiar, well-known layout with shelves and displays of merchandise occupying the bulk of the store and cashier areas near the front or exit. Consumer transactions require customers to produce selected items at a checkout location to initiate a purchase transaction. Item information gets entered into a point-of-sale (POS) terminal device, or the information is automatically entered by scanning barcodes on product packages with a barcode scanner. Customers are then offered various payment options—at least, historically—such as paying by cash, check, credit or debit card.
Strides have been made to expedite transactions, track inventory, and reduce theft. Mechanical cash registers have given way to POS terminals and electronic registers integrated with stores' electronic inventory databases. Universal Product Code (UPC), bar codes, Quick Response (QR) codes and similar markings designed for scanning by electronic (optical) scanners have become ubiquitous on packaging to allow for scanning by inexpensive scanners. Attempting to mitigate long lines and need for retail staff, self-checkout POS systems have been deployed in many retail stores.
Some have proposed more efficient systems for use in stores having self-checkout lanes such as grocery stores, home improvement stores and other retail box stores. A self-checkout-equipped POS typically includes a countertop and computer terminal, optical scanner or reader, a computer communication connection, and POS software running on the computer at the POS. The customer scans products upon checkout using the optical (e.g., bar code) reader. The computer communicates with the customer via the POS software and a user interface. The Universal Product Code (UPC) of the merchandise being purchased are scanned from each item individually and the corresponding information is processed for pricing and inventory control by sending the scanned UPC information to a host server, which processes the UPC information by comparing it to a database. The database typically includes information such as a description of the product, number of units in stock, price per unit, and any other information which may facilitate the transaction.
This approach has largely replaced older methods where a human cashier manually enters the price SKU code of each item into a cash register at the POS. However, one disadvantage of item tracking using the UPC scheme is that the code doesn't typically uniquely identify an item such as a serial number would.
One problem with self-checkout POS installations is the reduced monitoring of merchandise being checked out by customers, including the problem arising from customers who accidentally or intentionally carry out merchandise through a self-checkout POS without properly or fully scanning the merchandise (in other words without paying for it). For the present purposes, accidental and intentional omission of such a checkout procedure by a customer is considered an unwanted loss of the merchandise equivalent to theft or shoplifting. To address this, some installations have affixed tags to merchandise and inventory items for tracking and security controls. Magnetic and digitally encoded tags can be read by an active or passive transponder device operated by a retail associate for reducing shoplifting of expensive items from stores such as clothing stores.
Existing systems have limitations including, by way of example, the lack of security measures working in concert with the systems. All sales must be monitored by an attendant to insure that the patron has presented each merchandise item to the bar code scanner. The requirement for an attendant to monitor the sales limits the number of sales terminals that may be operated, as it is not cost effective to have an attendant monitoring such a terminal during periods of low sales volumes.
Alternatively, goods must be tagged with magnetic security tags which set off an alarm if they are not removed or disabled using a special machine prior to carrying the goods out of the store through a security gate. Security tags are commonly used on expensive goods such as clothing. The security tags are typically affixed to the clothing with a mechanical fastener that may damage or deform the goods being tagged. The presence of such security tags on merchandise also detracts from the customer's shopping experience as the tags are an awkward reminder that the retailer is concerned about shoplifting by its customers. Also, the tags can be bulky and awkwardly attached to items such as clothing, making it difficult to comfortably try on the clothing in the store. The security tags, tag removal or neutralization devices and associated security gates at store exits detract from the shopping experience and add cost of installation and maintenance to the store owner. In addition, existing anti-theft measures are imperfect and cause numerous false positive alarms which lead to customers and store associates alike ignoring the alarms or having awkward interactions if the customer's person needs to be searched because of the setting off of an alarm.
Self-checkout technologies have gained acceptance in some types of stores such as supermarkets, high volume retailers, and home improvement stores. Yet, many stores have found that employing self-checkout technologies does not avoid customers waiting impatiently in lines. As mentioned, most self checkout systems employ machines that are expensive, they occupy valuable space at the front of the stores, and there can only be so many of them available at one time. They are also prone to errors or security lapses if the retailer is unable to properly monitor the customers' operation of the self checkout stations.
A schema for marking and tracking commercial inventory is the electronic product code (EPC) schema. FIG. 1 is an exemplary partition table 100 and corresponding binary string 110 showing the contents of an electronic product code (EPC), according to the prior art, which is shown and further described for example at www.epc-rfid.info/sgtin as publicly available circa Aug. 10, 2015. An EPC code is therefore a standardized multi-bit number to identify certain information relating to an item of merchandise or inventory. EPC schema include 64, 96 and 198 bit schema. The EPC can encode a GTIN/UPC number and may also include a serial number for an item. A SGTIN (serial GTIN), the GTIN/UPC number identifies the type and manufacturer of an item (e.g., a merchandise product). Retailers and grocers and box stores commonly stock merchandise bearing labels or tags to permit more accurate and rapid “scanning” of the merchandise, whether for inventory or checkout purposes. One kind of retailer that has not benefited from self checkout technology includes high end boutique retail stores such as clothing, electronics or other boutique merchandisers. Such retailers do not wish to have common rows of checkout registers in the store or lining its exit ways as are found in box stores and grocery chains. One reason is that these checkout stands have a common and unwanted appearance. Another reason is that these checkout stands take up valuable floor space in the boutique retail store.
Other retailers (e.g., Apple Inc.) have introduced limited self help systems for their customers. Customers in Apple stores can select and pay for certain products using their mobile devices, which operate using an installed App and while connected to the store's wireless communication network or to another wireless communication network (e.g., 802.11, cellular network, etc.). However, these systems lack theft control means and therefore are limited to use with low-value products.
Other systems for tracking and processing inventory include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. Unlike bar code systems, in which the bar code must be directly displayed to the bar code reader or a camera, RFID systems use radio waves to read a tag anywhere within the field generated by the reader, regardless of the orientation of a particular tag.
RFID is a data collection technology that uses radio-sensitive tags for storing data. RFID tags, which are also sometimes referred to as transponders, typically comprise two parts. The first part is an integrated circuit for storing and processing data, modulating and demodulating RF signals, and performing other specialized functions. The second part is an antenna that provides the means for the integrated circuit to transmit its stored data to an RFID reading device. An RFID reading device is also called an interrogator. In most applications, RFID tags are affixed to moveable inventory and act in a passive way, being interrogated by a stationary RFID reader.
Various merchandise-tracking solutions using RFID tags have been proposed as a substitute for using bar codes in supply chain management and, in particular, retail or supermarket type checkout systems. RFID tags can be read from up to several meters away, and RFID scanners are capable of multi-directional reading, allowing RFID tracking systems to scan for multiple items in the vicinity of the scanner.
Efforts to implement conventional RFID-based scanning systems include implementations for scanning an entire shopping cart full of items at once, in an effort to save time over the traditional checkout process where item bar codes are manually scanned in one at a time. However, difficulties have arisen in obtaining an accurate accounting of shopping cart contents, due primarily to the size and volume of a typical shopping cart. Items near the center of a cart are not reliably detectable with an RFID scanner using existing technology. Also, in a busy practical retail environment, if multiple nearby checkout stations are installed, the reader at one checkout station may accidentally pick up signals from RFID tags belonging to a customer at another checkout station, thereby charging the wrong customer for the goods and/or double-charging more than one customer for the same goods. Therefore, current applications of RFID technology (and similar RF tagging technologies) are not yet secure, economical or reliable enough to be confidently used in daily commerce.
Another limitation of RFID is it is not widely integrated onto mobile devices. Although there have been a few attempts to bring RFID reading technology into mobile devices like smartphones, this technology has not become a widespread industry norm, for example similar to a camera. This also limits advanced scenarios where the customer can read an RFID code with her mobile device, for example to purchase a good in a retail store.
Despite the shortcomings of prior RFID-based product scanning systems, however, RFID technology remains a powerful tool with a great deal of potential for use in supply chain management, inventory management, and, in particular, for risk management and theft prevention. Anti-theft devices, such as disposable anti-theft tags and anti-theft towers or pillars near store exits that sense them, have become more widespread. All of these technologies contribute to the smooth, efficient operation of retail stores for store owners and a more streamlined experience for consumers.
With respect to payment, credit and debit cards have been in use for years. The manner in which these payment cards are used is substantially unchanged since their introduction: a cardholder presents their payment card to a merchant, who uses a magnetic stripe reader to read the cardholder's payment account information and then the merchant transmits the payment account information along with transaction details to a payment network for authorization, clearing and settlement. While this approach has worked well, there are a number of disadvantages associated with it.
For example, not all merchants are able to properly secure the user information that is read from a payment card. There have been a number of highly publicized incidents where cardholder data was stolen from merchant systems. In other incidents, employees directly skimmed or copied cardholder data and used it for fraudulent transactions. If merchants are required to continue to read, store and transmit payment card information, such thefts will persist. Further, the systems and procedures required to properly save, store and transmit cardholder information is a significant cost to merchants. It would be desirable to provide systems and methods in which payment card information is not stored, captured, or transmitted by merchants.
Recently, payment card associations and issuers have offered payment solutions using mobile phone technology by proposing the use of near field communication (NFC) chips or tags installed on/in mobile phones as a way to allow payment card information to be presented at a point of sale location, the operable range of NFC systems being on the order of several centimeters. However, such solutions require that point of sale devices have NFC readers installed, and would still have the security (e.g., theft protection) problems described above.